>> Friday, June 3, 2016

REFLECTIONS
Father Shay Cullen

BERLIN,
GERMANY. I met Alamid here in Germany and he told me he was a refugee from
Syria. Their house was partly destroyed by the barrel bombs of Assad, the
tyrannical Syrian dictator who is being supported by Russian forces and
warplanes.

Alamid is one of the hundreds of non-combatant families bombed out and
who lost all their possessions. They are surviving the bombs by hiding in
building and basements . He was with his whole family including cousins and
uncles.

His male cousin Jambal, 25 years old, volunteered to go out into the
danger zone and get food and water but he was caught by the Isis or Dash
killers. Alamid later learned that he was taken to a camp and forced to wear a
suicide vest and blow himself up at an army checkpoint. Otherwise his entire
family would be killed. This is a regular tactic used by the detested Isis.

The Isis fighters were grabbing any one they could catch in the ruins of
the town where Alamid lives. They took away any women and girls they caught to
another town and sold them into sex slavery to other fighters of the Isis.

The young girls are commodities sold in exchange for money, guns or
ammunition.

When Jamal did not return, Alamid and his family feared the worst and
they hid for weeks surviving on the meager supplies that they had stored up.
After the counterattack by rebel forces, the Isis withdrew and Alamid and his
family survived.

Alamid told his story to the generous and kind Germany family that had
given him a welcome in their house and he was given a room and was learning to
speak and write German. He was treated like a member of their family. There are
many thousands of German families doing just that. Communities are taking in
refugees from this horrific war and without media attention or fanfare they
share and protect them. This is largely unknown to the world.

This is going on all over Germany. It puts to shame those few who drive
out the refugees. A German lady working with Caritas Germany told me, “The
German people will prevail over the neo-Nazis.” An anti-refugee and
anti-migrant party won a considerable number of seats in a recent regional
election.

Alamid explained the terrible fears and suffering the people in Syria
endure. Some other families feared they would be captured by Isis so they as a
family had made a suicide pack. They had surrounded themselves with explosives
ready to blow themselves up and die together rather than suffer rape and
murder. The Isis fighters rape mothers and girls in front of their husbands,
fathers or brothers and then they would be shot. For some families, mass
suicide is the only solution.

A German woman, 90 years old, said during a parish meeting, “We were all
refugees after the war, with nothing to eat and nowhere to go. Our houses were
all destroyed. We know what it feels like to be like them.”

The love, care and compassion that is being shown is exemplary.
Filipinos living here have expressed their support of the refugees and they
shared the happy experience about the welcome into Germany they got as migrant
workers. Many are settled, well-employed and married.

A charity worker told me that she doesn’t believe that the so-called
Cologne New Year’s night sexual assaults were as widespread as reported or even
happened. It is now emerging, according to some, that it was a right-wing
neo-Nazi plot to disparage the refugees and turn public opinion against them.
If it was such a plot, then it worked.

The hard-hearted politicians and anti-migrant groups are the dark side
of human nature, the side that wants to keep their place of the planet entirely
for themselves. Many of these right-wing anti-migrants are living in the false
fear spread by racists who whip up mobs to attack the buildings housing
refugees.

They do not know what hardship and suffering the refugees have to
endure. Families send the young boys and youth on the migrant trail to save
them from being forced to join Isis as warriors .Video has been seen showing as
many as fifty children, some as young a ten, being brainwashed so as they would
become killers. The Isis is a force for evil and exploitation. It has nothing
to do with true Islam.

What is needed in this situation above all is compassion, understanding
and knowledge. We need to respect the dignity of the people, reach out and help
end the terrible suffering of the refugees caught on the Greek border and not
add to their hardship but give them freedom and a chance for a better
life.shaycullen@preda.org